


Headphone Actor

by anonemones



Series: Kageroutale [3]
Category: Kagerou Project, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: ...yeah, Gen, also if you follow my tumble you get cool info, also who's that kiddo with the flower?? hm. questions, and art, and updates, hope you like!!, man everyone's dyin in this series, not done with artificial enemy tho, of this crossover, so they're split up, this one's short but it's not my fault, this was originally gonna be headphone actor AND artificial enemy but, too long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-30 01:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10150484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonemones/pseuds/anonemones
Summary: I couldn’t take the sound of it any longer;The crying and the tears were just starting to form now.Doesn’t matter why, but the song of people wouldNever stop singing, although now, it was ending.“You better hurry, now that you have one minute.”But hearing now those words, they didn’t matter anymore;Cuz that faraway hill now, that would save my lifeWas staring straight at me, right in the face.





	

Alphys used to wonder what it’s like to die. What it feels like to slip away and embrace a merciful darkness that’d block out a world that never did much good for her. Does it hurt? Will she remain here, a ghost, or travel to another plane of existence? Will she cease to exist?

These thoughts played through her mind in her darkest moments; questions that, as a scientist, perplexed her to the tenth degree.

She never thought she’d be finding the answer out so soon.

The heat from the blasters is excruciating. The very fiber of her being splitting, melting away, her body ripping itself apart at the seams. A scream bubbles up in her throat, threatening to unleash itself in an agonized screech, but the sound never leaves her lips—because they aren’t there, not anymore. Instead, she’s left in a silent, paralyzed state, burning underneath searing magic.

Her body dissipates long before the blast fades.

She begins to slip away….

…

..

.

.

.

But, she remains.

 

When she opens her eyes again, she notices that her world is not the same as it was before. The air is heavier, electric, clinging to her clothes—which, she notices, are not her own, a colorful display of blacks and yellows and reds that she doesn’t remember owning. In the distance, she hears screaming, echoing in the blurry darkness surrounding her, threatening to swallow her up.

 _Hurry_.

She’s outside of her lab instead of inside it, resting just outside of the door. _Odd…how’d I end up outside?_ Groaning, she clutches her head, a migraine settling in, though she can’t point out why. _What was I doing again?_

 _Hurry_.

Inaudible before, a voice whispers in her ear, and she becomes aware of headphones beating loudly in her ears. She hadn’t noticed them over the ringing and spinning currently overriding her brain.

“Hello?” Alphys stumbles to her feet, staring at a red, overcast sky. _What’s going on…?_

Her disorientation clears long enough for an ebbing thought to come to the forefront of her mind, and she gasps, glancing back at the lab.

 _Oh my_ God _, Gaster—_

_Hurry up. You don’t have much time left._

“Who _are_ you?” Alphys snaps, twisting around to search for the source of the voice. Nobody around, she sees nothing but her lab, and the magma below.

Magma that quickly eats away at the floor around her, her lab crumbling into its depths.

Alphys’s eyes blow wide, backing away. _Whoa_ —

_Do you want to survive?_

Alphys, her eyes clouded with tears, can do nothing but nod.

 _Then run_.

The ground beneath her feet shakes, a violent crack! sounding as it begins to break away. Any second, and it—along with herself—will fall into the magma waiting below.

She doesn’t need to be told twice, taking off away from the place she barely called her home.

_Five minutes left._

She doesn’t know where she’s going; no path in set, she focuses on nothing but what lie ahead of her, the path that struggles to remain in the dark. All around her, space itself rips open, tearing to reveal hideous static beneath, roaring louder than Hotland’s screams. She hears people running behind her—crying, screaming, looking for any means of escape—but she doesn’t pay much attention to them. To her, they amount to mere background noise.

_Four minutes left._

“Help!”

She turns, briefly, hearing the shriek of a small girl. She recognizes them—the King’s child, the human one—lost in the crowd surging up behind her. She falters long enough to see the static latch onto the child and drag them off the ledge, before turning away.

“ _Chara_ —”

 _Asriel_ —?

_Hurry up; not too long now. Just up ahead, now—you’ll be safer there._

The ground shakes, breaks, falls. People behind her scream, their screams echoing all around. Such cries for help, such mournful tears, follow them into the lava.

Alphys quickens her pace, pounding her feet into the ground. _I can’t die_ , she thinks, _I_ won’t _die_.

Still, thoughts like that can do nothing against the tears that fall now.

_Three minutes. Keep going, you’re almost there—_

“ _Ah_!”

Alphys trips, head smacking against the Earth. Stars fill her vision, the scientist blinking away tears to look down, something gripping her ankle.

She yelps when she sees that what holds her in place, deterring her from her goal, are vines, wrapping tighter and tighter around her ankle.

“No, no, _no_ —”

She pulls hard on them, trying to free herself, but it’s no use. The vines hold her down in a vice grip, refusing to let go.

She’s stuck.

People rush by her, pushing and shoving, jostled this way and that. A couple step on her tail, the scientist biting her lip so hard it bleeds, lest she join the chorus of screaming chasing away from her. She digs her nails into the taunt grass, praying, hoping, _please don’t let me die here, please don’t let me die here, please,_ please _…_

_Two minutes left._

_One minute left._

_Thirty seconds left…_

The narrator in her head continues to count, their voice shaking, as though nervous for Alphys’s fate. The whispering in her headphones becomes a continuous chatter, other voices joining the voice, chanting, begging for her to continue, to escape the end of the world.

She finds the thought bitterly hilarious. _As if that’s even possible._

_Fifteen seconds left…_

_Crack!_

The ground beneath her gives way, and Alphys’s heart sinks, hands scrambling to grab onto anything to keep her from falling, “ _No_!”

The earth slips away, and she feels herself dip, hand clinging to the edge. Her only lifeline.

_Ten seconds left…_

The crowd that had stormed the path before is gone now, leaving Alphys hanging there, alone, excluding the static, the magma and a creeping, repetitive message blaring in her mind, becoming louder and louder and louder as the static swallows up a cruel, merciless reality.

ERROR.

A pointless accusation, though thinking about it, perhaps that’s not what it is. Instead, the voices in her mind state it almost as a fact, telling her, “this is why this is happening. This is why you’re experiencing this; not because of anything you or anyone else did, but because of an error. A mistake in time.”

Oh, how hideous life can be.

The platform around her falls away, leaving what little patch she’s managed to dangle from. She glances up, tears drying on her face, for she has no more tears to shed—and she meets the gaze of a child, standing on the platform, a pleasant smile on their face. Or, no, _not_ their gaze, for they have no eyes—a blossoming, glowing Echo flower masking what features they have, except their disturbing, misleading smile.

“Please,” she finds herself begging, her voice meek, “please…help…”

The child grins wide, leaning forward—

— _Zero_ —

They stomp on her fingers, and she lets out a bloodcurdling wail, her fingers slipping from the ground. The remaining platform falls, but the child does not, vanishing from sight as static closes in on the falling scientist, her doom rushing up to her at an alarming rate.

_I’m sorry…_

The voices in her headphones grow silent, her descent as silent as the churning magma rushing up to meet her, its heat a welcoming, beautiful feeling.

_I never got to tell you…_

As the heat grows steadily unbearable, Alphys is briefly aware of cold, startling static wrapping around her, embracing her just before she reaches the lava. Her world goes dark, her body shattered, broken, pieces flying into the grey void, leaving not even her conscious behind.

_…I love you._

And yet, she remains. But she is not the same as she once was.

 

_Calling: Unknown number._

Sans rolls over on his bed, groaning, covering his head with his pillow. He’s been getting strange calls for the past week, all from a number he doesn’t recognize. He’s done a good job of ignoring it, and any calls that have occurred over the past couple of months as a matter of fact. He made a promise to himself when _he_ died that he wouldn’t pick up that damn thing again, not that it’s not doing him any good…

_Ring…ring…_

_Calling: Unknown number_.

“Go _away_.” Sans mumbles, voice muffled. He curls up on his unmade bed, trying to block out the noise. “Nobody’s home.” _Or, at least, I_ wish _nobody was home…_

_Ring…ring…_

“ _Ugh_.”

A full week of this. Of constantly listening to his phone ring, the caller being a complete _stranger_ , pestering him to near insanity. _Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?_ He wonders, frowning. _Some cruel prank to mess with me? Don’t they know I’ve dealt with enough?_

 _Ring_ …

Sans sits up, glaring at the phone on his bedside table. Will they stop if I pick it up…?

_Ring…_

“Ugh, _fine_ —”

Sighing, Sans picks his phone up, pressing “accept.”

Big mistake.

Before he can hold it up to his head, his screen flashes, revealing someone vaguely familiar, yet not at all. He can tell it’s a girl, what with the blue, vibrant sweater and skirt she wears; a headset on her head, eyes wide and excited, her smiling, giggling face presses up against his screen, a sight that does little good for the skeleton’s poor heart. The most prominent thing he notices about her at first glance is the flower sprouting from her chest, its low hum echoing through his phone’s speakers. An Echo flower.

“ _Yes_ , you picked up! _Finally_!”

“ _Ack_ —”

Sans falls back, dropping his phone, which falls face-down on the carpeted floor. Sans grunts when his spine smashes against the ground, an ache blossoming in his vertebrae. _Shit, shit,_ ow _…_

Sitting up, albeit slowly due to the pain, Sans glances to his phone again, shock written all over his face. His brain refuses to process what he’s just seen. _That wasn’t real_ , he tells himself. _That didn’t just happen. There’s not some random girl in my phone…there’s_ not _a random girl in my phone…_

Picking it back up, he flips it over, bracing himself for whatever reality holds.

There’s nobody there. Nothing, except his solid-color background.

Sans sighs, shaking his head. “Great. Now I’m losing my mind.” He notices that the “call” is still running and moves to close it, muttering, “Stupid imagination running away from me—”

“You better catch it then, buddy!”

“ _Gah_ —”

_Seriously—?_

There, flipping through his apps, is the girl, smiling in his direction when he finds her snooping. “Hello!” She says, coming closer to peer at him. “Thanks for answering me finally! I thought you never would—though, for future reference, you probably _shouldn’t_ just talk to random people over the phone. Creeps can get ahold of pretty serious information that way! Like…aha!”

She pulls up an app—and the site of it makes Sans pale. “Put that _back_ ,” he snaps. “How’d you get in my phone, anyway? Get outta there! Shoo!”

“Oh, well, when you picked up the call, my data automatically encrypted itself into your phone. Now I’m rooming here! Nice to meetcha, roomie! Or, as your phone’s code tells me, Sans.” She pauses then, whistling as she opens the app. She grins in his direction as his screen fills with provocative images too obscene to describe. “Ohoho! Roomie’s got some wild tastes—”

Sans’s face flushes, “ _Put it back_!” _God, this is so_ embarrassing _…why does stuff like this only happen to_ me _?_

The girl laughs, waving a hand, the app returning to his home screen. I gotta remember to delete that later. “There, it’s gone. Happy, grumpy?” She pouts, then smiles again. “Y’know, for a NEET, you seem pretty agitated. Aren’t you guys supposed to be chill?”

“I have some weird girl, _in my phone_ , snooping through my _things_! I have reason not to be ‘ _chill_ ,’ thanks!” Sans sighs then, shaking his head. “A girl that I’m…now talking to…God, I’m really losing it—”

“Well, the outdoors fixes stuff like that! Just saying.”

“ _Shut up_.” Sans pauses, his anger fading slightly as he looks at the girl. She sits now on his safari app, looking around curiously. “…Who _are_ you, exactly?” He asks. “And more importantly—why the _hell_ did you pick _my_ phone to bug?”

“’Cause it wasn’t protected.” She shrugs, standing. Then, she rushes to the screen, her face filling it up. “And, ah, as for your first question…just call me AL.”


End file.
